Transgenders protest against invasion of privacy

The transgender community came out to protest on Monday against a television channel for “grossly invading their privacy” in a recorded programme aired recently. At the Karachi Press Club, about 200 transgender people staged a demonstration organised by the Gender Interactive Alliance (GIA) – a group advocating for the rights of the vulnerable community.\n \n

5th January 2014 09:19

Alessia Valenza

The demonstrators appealed to the Supreme Court chief justice and Sindh chief minister to take action against the channel, which, they said, had projected the transgender people in a “bad light and made their lives miserable.”

“The channel has violated the fundamental human rights guaranteed by the constitution of Pakistan to every citizen,” said Bindiya Rana, the GIA president, while speaking to the media at the protest. “The host of the show did not only violate our rights as human beings but did not even spare some human dignity.”

Broadcast on December 15 on a private TV channel in the show, a female reporter accompanied with policemen was shown barging into a house in Karachi, where a man and a transgender had been living as husband and wife allegedly. A clip of the “raid” soon became viral on the social media websites. The video shows the reporter verbally abusing the man and his “wife” for living together and also shouting at the transgender to prove if she was a woman. The faces of the victims were left uncensored throughout the show.